


At least, there was strength in fragility

by 247Elena



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Other, Post-Hullen Johnny, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22812850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/247Elena/pseuds/247Elena
Summary: Sometimes we are faced with a mirror of ourselves that we cannot get rid of. And sometimes that mirror takes over.Short moments with Johnny after he was Hullen.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	At least, there was strength in fragility

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of fell in love with this show and finished the series in three days. Messed around with a few things from the series just to put more emphasis on Johnny as well. Felt the need to post this. Enjoy.

He wakes.

There’s a pinch in his neck, a blanket of ache that he wants to shake off, roll over and forget. And then there’s the headache, the pulsing that waves through him like electrical charges. He’s hyperaware, he feels like the air is pushing tiny little needles all over him. It’s overwhelming.

And then he remembers.

Overwhelming is becoming an understatement rapidly. Flashes are like punches that he cannot avoid. He groans and gasps, feels like he’s drowning and burning at the same time. Voices were blaring, a feeling coloured red filled him by every inch, and he was drowning.

“Johnny, you’re awake.”

“Lucy.” It’s mumbled. Barely audible, hoarse under his stinging throat.

“Johnny, how are you feeling?” And if Johnny was feeling anywhere close to fine, he’d remark about how much she cared. But truth be told, he was tired. He was tired and he couldn’t munster any part of himself to be that Johnny right now.

“Besides feeling like I’ve been turned inside out, just peachy.” Denial. It was easy. Because if he pretended that he was fine, then he would be fine. Johnny shouldn’t have been surprised when it didn’t register with Lucy, she was remarkably stubborn for an A.I.

“Wonderful because Dutch is about 0.37 seconds away from opening your door.” Lucy said way more cheerily then Johnny thought she had any right too. Damn A.I.

Right on queue, his door slide open and in walked Dutch. Dutch who Johnny should remember being back. How could he forget something like that but then…

_His hands tightened, pressing down as though he thought to snap the windpipe under it. There was a coldness running through him, a resolve filling that numbed whatever part of him was still human. Because he wasn’t. This wasn’t his brother anymore. He was an obstacle. An annoying bug that he had to squash in order to be whole._

_Crushing until he hears the cracks_

_Crushing until the eyes were dead_

_Crushing_

_A sharpness takes his side, rolls through his body until the grip lessens and he feels the ground chasing him and darkness invading him._

“Johnny?” She seems worried. Why is she worried? He should be worried. He should be… “Johnny, are you okay?”

“Besides the neck pain?” Johnny grumbled, but the lopsided smile tried to mask it as anything but the truth. “I feel like I could run a marathon right about now, in fact, I think I could actually knock you down in a fight I am that good.”

“Right, stupid question,” Dutch mumbled, there was a hesitation in her movements. It was unusual for Johnny to see that with her. She was so sure of herself nearly all the time that seeing her hesitate around him was like a little spike stabbing him.

And Johnny remembers the venom he spat at her, the hurt on her face that he had caused. He could feel it like bile in his throat, rising and invading him.

“Oh god, I am so sorry, Dutch.” It comes out cracked and more broken than Johnny intended. “I would never say that shit to you, I didn’t mean it.”

Dutch, however, seemed more confused than anything, eyebrows furrowing. “Johnny, you have nothing to be sorry about, you were Hullen.”

“But I do.” Johnny wrings his hands, “I- I wasn’t fully Hullen. I still felt things, I felt angry all the time Dutch. I hated. I hated D’av, I hated you.”

And that was it. The thing eating away in his gut, rotting him from the inside out since he woke up. He could never take it back. He could never take back wanting to kill his brother, never take back wanting to kill Dutch. It was a sickness that festered and grew in him. A complex realisation that the parasite inside of him had warped those feelings, had nurtured and grew them. Manipulated it for its benefit.

“And as I said you were Hullen, no matter if you didn’t have enough of that plasma shit in you yet to fully transition, it was still in you. No one is going to blame you for what you did or said.” Dutch emphasised as she sat down next to him, her hand reaching for his only for him to jerk it away. “Hullen manipulates, it manipulated you and us. You are not responsible for that.”

“I felt my hands around D’av’s neck, I still feel…” Johnny stopped. “It’s like being constipated and then finally shitting you know?”

Dutch scrunched her face. “Johnny that’s disgusting.”

“I was never good at analogies,” Johnny huffs out a humourless laugh. “I didn’t feel anything and now I feel everything Dutch and it’s overwhelming.”

It takes her a moment, to comprehend the words he spoke. The gravity of what it meant for him. Johnny lost her just as she had lost them. And when she comes back he’s here yet not here. It seems to be impossible to find each other. She wants to bring up all that Khlyen had told her, but as she looked at Johnny, beads of sweat pooling at his forehead, his eyes distant from her. All she could do was sit there and be with him. A few moments to themselves wouldn’t hurt.

“I have done horrible things Johnny,” Dutch starts and Johnny goes to rebuff if not for her hand rising to stop him. “Horrible things. I killed people, I betrayed people. I did it all while I still felt things, I did it by my own without something inside me. But I was also manipulated and I hated myself for a long time for it because I believed I could’ve had a choice in the matter. I never did, it was taken from me just as it was taken from you. It took me so long to see it that way and I hurt myself and others coming to realise that. Please, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t let me watch you do that to yourself.”

Johnny had grown used to Dutch’s shoulder being there for him, but now it just felt like a luxury he couldn’t afford to have. Didn’t deserve to have. Not when she was fighting her own battles, not when those battles far outweighed his own.

“We’ll get through this Dutch,” He said without believing. “Takes more than a Hullen alien dipshit to take down me.”

-

Johnny had taken to tinkering to keep his mind occupied. He had always done it to pass the time, but now even Lucy remarked that John had taken to doing 5 times more then he usually did. Lucy didn’t mind the attention, in fact, she loved it, but even when John had her full attention she noticed he wasn’t actually paying attention to her. They chit chat, banter with each other’s intellectand understanding. It’s juvenile and harmless and Lucy almost feels like she could reach out and touch John in those moments. She felt human in these special moments between them.

This time, however, it’s different. This time there isn’t that pitch in Johnny’s voice that she usually detects. It seems one noted yet frayed. As though he was trying to replicate the Johnny she knew.

“John.”

“I’m sorry Lucy did I pinch something then?” Johnny mumbled, his hand faltering slightly as though he was afraid he could hurt her.

“No, John, you did not.” She replied back.

“Then what’s up girl?”

“John…” She started although she for some reason couldn’t find the words in her information banks for a moment. “I am concerned.”

Finally, John completely stopped his movements, settling his hands down onto his lap. “Baby girl, you gotta use your words.”

“I am using words, Johnny.” She retorted back and for a moment it felt normal once again. Until it wasn’t anymore. “I am concerned for you.”

He stills as though he knows what she’s talking about because he does, but denial seems easier than acceptance. “Aww, that’s sweet of you Luc, but I’m fine. Cross my heart.”

“Perhaps you should talk with Dutch again,” Lucy started. “I know it often helps humans to talk when they experience traumatic events.”

Johnny groans. “Well sometimes Lucy, the last thing people want to do is talk about their feelings.”

She utters an ‘oh’ and remains silent for some time. So much so that it actually guilts Johnny a little and he sighs.

“I’m sorry Luc, I didn’t mean to get angry at you,” Johnny stops for a moment. “I can’t talk to Dutch or anyone for a little bit, okay? Right now all I need is to focus my mind on something besides the fact that I nearly killed my brother and was an absolute asshole to everyone. Now all I want to do is spend some quality with you, pretend that things are normal for a little while. Do you think you could do that for me, Luc?”

“Of course, Johnny.”

They continued on as they were, Lucy answering John’s questions dutifully and John making idle conversation whenever the urge struck. There was a mutual understanding of not acknowledging Johnny’s issue and for that, he was grateful if he could pretend for a little bit that it never happened.

-

Johnny closed his eyes, emptying the last of the amber liquid into his mouth. The living area was empty thankfully, despite his reassurances that he was fine, he still wasn’t fond of company. He had been focused on the burn of the alcohol down his throat he failed to notice someone at the entrance of the room.

“If I didn’t know better,” It started. “I’d say you were avoiding.”

Opening his eyes again, he finds himself staring at his brother. _Hands squeezing tighter… tighter…_

“Hard to sit down when we’ve got a Hullen Lady bitch to deal with.” He murmurs, his hands idly turning the glass tumbler. “Plus you’ve gotta be spending time with that kid of yours, can't be letting him spend too much time with Kendry, otherwise we might have another little sociopath on our hands.”

“I still can’t believe I have a kid you know?” D'av's voice drifting with the sense of awe in it. 

“Probably has something to do with the fact that he was a test tube baby that grew into a teenager in a day.” Johnny retorted, his brother huffing out a laugh at it.

“Yeah probably.” D’av walked into the room, taking a seat beside his brother, helping himself to a glass. “You know I get it, Johnny.”

Johnny scrunches his eyebrows. “Are we still talking about your kid?”

“I stabbed you, Johnny.” It comes out blunt, too casual considering the gravity of what the words were.

“Geez, thanks for reminding me,” Johnny mumbled faintly, drawing in a deep breath.

“Johnny can you just listen to me for one second?” D’av groaned out. “You’re still kicking yourself for what you did while Hullen, you still think you deserve for us to blame you for everything that happened during it. Do you still blame me for stabbing you, Johnny? I would have killed you if Lucy didn’t send out a distress call.”

Johnny looks at D’av as though he had lost his senses. “I never blamed you for that shit. It wasn’t you.”

D’av widens his eyes, looking pointedly at Johnny.

“Not the same thing.”

“Yes, it is.” D’avin sighs. “Come on, you’re meant to be the smart brother here. You can’t say one thing isn’t and one is. We both had something controlling us.”

It stops Johnny, seeing the softness in D’av stare unwavering and never faltering.

“I can’t not think it was me. I remember doing it, I remember wanting to do it.” Johnny's voice pitches slightly. "And that's what I can't get over, D'av. You all talk about how it wasn't me, how I wasn't in control but I felt it."

“I know.” D’av consoles softly. “It took me a long time to not think that the person who hurt Dutch, hurt you, was me.”

“How’d you manage that?” John asks.

“I had you and Dutch.” The stretch that seemed to be between them seemed to close in, once impossibly challenging. “And you have us. We’ll always be here for you, Johnny.”

The hum of the ship around them comforts them in their silence, resonating calmly in the room, tinting Johnny’s uncertainty. He looks up at D’av and he suddenly feels that he may have made it home at last.


End file.
